NFL: Round Two Playoff Review

Well, I’ve had better weekends in terms of picks, but I must say those games were a lot of fun to watch. I went 3-1 picking game winners in the 2nd Round, but only 1-3 for picks vs. the spread. I’m glad I didn’t put money down on any of these games, but that may be part of why I went 1-3 vs. the spread. There was at least one game that I picked with my heart and not my head, which was Denver losing by only 7 to New England.

49ers over the Saints 36-32: I got this one right. I thought the SF D was strong enough to slow down the prolific NO offense. Well, I guess holding the Saints offense to 32 pts is slowing it down. The surprise was how well SF QB Alex Smith played. Prior to this game if you told one team in this game would score 36 pts and the other would score 32 pts I surely would have assumed that the Saints rang up 36. Rookie Head Coach Jim Harbaugh has done an incredible job with the 49ers, who were just a .500 team last year. Is there any doubt left that he should be Coach of the Year?

Patriots over the Broncos 45-10 : I really should known that this game had blowout potential written all over it. In retrospect I was way too influenced by the Bronco victory over Pittsburgh and a desire to see Tim Tebow do well. The Broncos played the perfect game against the Steelers and it was unlikely that they would be able to repeat that performance against the Patriots in NE.

Ravens over the Texans 20-13: Ravens won, which I predicted, but only by 7 and the spread was 7 1/2. The guys in Vegas really know how too set those lines. This game pretty much went as expected, but the Ravens offense was disappointing. From here on out the Ravens will have to put more points on the board in order to win.

Giants over the Packers 37-20: A classic example a game featuring one team that is peaking and hitting on all cylinders vs another team that appears to have peaked a month or two ago. The Packers needed a flawless performance from their offense to win in order to compensate a defense which was less then exceptional all season and they didn’t get it. It was strange to see such sloppy play from the Packers on offense. The GB receivers dropped a heck of a lot of balls. However, the Giants had a lot to do with that and I have to give credit where credit is due. Coach Coughlin has done a masterful job with this team and Eli Manning is playing the best ball of his career. At the beginning of the season Eli declared that he was an elite QB, up there with Brady. I thought he rated himself too highly at the time, but he has truly has performed at an elite level this season, so he deserves that tag.

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